Bill Russell

UMass is bringing back established A-10 players, while UD is relying heavily on transfers from BCS schools who didn't set the world ablaze. The transfers could certainly work out, but what are the odds that more than one actually do?

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Knobby

Fair enough - all points valid. The preseason banner belongs to St Louis anyways.

The biggest differnce between Umass and Dayton is pure match-up. I think (for whatever reason) we match up much better with Temple/X/St Louis than Dayton does - the irony of that is that Dayton seems to be a bad matchup for us... Go figure.

It would be nice to get 5 teams in next year, but for that to realistically happen - those 5 teams are going to have to lay waste to the rest of the league - none of this 4-way tie for 5th stuff.

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Well, we were smaller, but at least we were slower!

ace93

Suffolk, really? I have *never* heard anyone refere to Suffolk as upsate. It's in Long Island for crying out loud.

I have heard people from Poughkeepsie say they are from Upstate which is laughable, but at least that is heading upstate. If you ask me, anyting above 218th Street is upstate.

Bona Wolf for Pope

I used to travel in (on?) Long Island, and I heard that mostly from Nassau County people. Admittedly, not some of the brightest bulbs.

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"Careful reading comprehension is crucial to an online forum discussion."

Flyer75

I understand this but you miss the point of who we are actually replacing...Williams, Hill, Luke and Parker. Not exactly cornerstone players. Parker was a 5'11 maybe 6'0 combo guard....we replace him with a 6'4 SG. Need I even bring up Luke and Hill?

I would be worried if we were replacing better players but we aren't. We only replace one 1,000 point scorer out of 5 players and 2 never touched 500 points.

Blue Blobster

This is what makes UMASS a top three favorite with SLU and St. Joes. They know what they have. UD has a bunch of transfers who didn't quite pan out at their old schools for one reason or another. Getting them all together will be interesting. the safe bet is UMASS.

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Xavier likes to Play in the NCAA tournaments
Dayton likes to host them while they play in the NIT

Flyer75

A "bunch" of transfers who didn't pan out? We have 3...one has already proven himself to be one of the top 1-3 PG in the league next year. One is from LSU where as a freshman he avg over 8 ppg in SEC play. Vee would be my only question but Archie gave him a ringing endorsement, which coaches generally don't do flippantly.

Daytons core team is back with Dillard, Oliver, Kavs, Alex, and the return of Benson.

I just question someone predicting UMass in first and UD in 6th-7th.

Blue Blobster

didn't consider dillard a transfer in this discussion because he has proven himself as a top 3 pg in the league. was speaking on who hadn't played ball in the a10. Derenbecker averaged 6.5 ppg for the entire season. and since him and the Vee have not played yet. they are very much unknowns until they play. You may know what they bring but that has not been realized until they play games with your team.

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Xavier likes to Play in the NCAA tournaments
Dayton likes to host them while they play in the NIT

SpiderDave19

The whole UMass vacated the final four thing is nothing but trolling garbage. It's not like they played with players they illegally recruited, or had 6 guys on the floor in their elite 8 win. They had a player take a couple thousand dollars from an agent. And it's been reported that the player since returned all the lost final four revenue to the school.

Non issue, Umass made the final four.

MudFlap

Closer to 28k
Yeah, sounds like it:

"Camby became deeply entangled in the seamy world that exits behind the scenes of big-time college athletics. The agents supplied him with money, jewelry, rental cars and prostitutes, which he willingly accepted and in some cases requested. Two agents, John Lounsbury of Wolcott, Conn., and Wesley Spears, a lawyer in Hartford, Camby's hometown, believed, or at least hoped, that Camby would allow them to represent him when he turned pro if they lavished gifts on him as a collegian; they were left in the lurch, feeling like jilted lovers, when he exited UMass after his junior year...."

Agents say the gave him $300 to $500 over 40 times.

z8-Minutemen

Oh just ignore the silly, deluded Flyers fans.

Besides the fact that we have more established A-10 players, we also had a better year than Dayton and got more postseason experience. I'll admit, we did got F**KED IN THE A$$ in the H-to-H with Dayton, but from that point on we became a different team, and Dayton did too. Dayton became an uninspired team of chokers (the X game), while UMass started playing inspired, refuse to lose basketball. It showed in every game, even the ones we lost vs Temple and Bona, where we could just fight back no matter the deficit. The peak was in the Drexel game when we made our amazing 2nd half comeback. I'm sorry Cryers fans, but you have to believe that that attitude and experience carries into next season, which is another reason that we're favored over them.

You can compare H-to-H and say we beat this team or that team so we should be in the conversation with them. But if you look at it that way, then shouldn't URI be in the conversation with St. Louis at the top of the league, even St. Louis had a far better year? Or how about this, shouldn't BC be considered an ACC contender along with FSU(which they beat H-to-H), even though FSU had an extremely better year. You can't look at it that way, you have to look at the overall record.

Man this thread took a turn for the worst..

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Dallas Cowboys- 5 super bowls and counting...

UMass Minutemen- 8 tournament appearances, 1 final four. Alumni: Julius 'Dr. J' Erving, Marcus Camby

Northeastern Huskies- 7 tournament appearances. Alumni: Reggie Lewis, Jose Juan 'JJ' Barea

waggy

You didn't think they would just let you walk away with the preseason championship uncontested did you??

SpiderDave19

Oh, the agents said that? Those are good guys. I'm sure everything they have to say is right on.

The point remains. Nothing about the situation should take away from what that team was on the court. They recruited clean and played 5 guys just like everyone else. A 19 year old kid from the slums took some money....big flippin' deal.

paulxu

Do you read what you write?

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...he went up late, and I was already up there.

AdamtheFlyer

I never thought I would see another fan base love the NIT more than most Dayton fans, but here it is, UMass fans LOVE LOVE LOVE the NIT.

It's the NIT. It means absolutely nothing. There is zero correlation between an NIT run and a great season the next year. There is even less value in a "refuse to lose" attitude that saw you lose 3 more games after the pink socking in Dayton.

Nothing from one season carries into the next. Next season will be largely determined by what happens from May through October, both in roster changes and summer work. If you think differently, you never played one second of competitive sports.

The "overall record" of UMass and Dayton were strikingly similar, except for the fact that Dayton played a much tougher OOC schedule and had more good wins. Dayton had the slightly better regular season. If you want to put a ton of value in a second rate post season tourney, go ahead, but you will walk close to alone on that one. I didn't put much value on it when Dayton won the thing, because I know better.

But like I said above, none of that means anything for next year. I couldn't care less where the teams are predicted in October. Just be careful thinking returning players = better success. That's a dangerous assumption to make.

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